Yesterday I posted on VMTN about the new VCDX Mentoring Process. I wanted to post a quick not about this change and see what people are thinking. Honestly I have not gotten any feedback, good, bad, or indifferent, so I guess no news is good news? Here is some of my personal feelings on the change and why I truly think it’s the best possible approach.
I Believe In Mentoring
I wanted to tell everyone I am a HUGE fan of mentoring. I have had many throughout my career, and I think they can be a great resource not just for VCDX, but for your career. I’ve also been asked to be a mentor to many people. Some people in my life have been mentors without even realizing it. I can tell you this blog was a result of mentorship from Duncan Epping back in 2010, strangely enough, while serving on VCDX panels in Cambridge, MA. He will remember that one, it was the event where I got the presidential suite at the Marriott!
I do believe that it’s a private thing between the two people. In cases where I asked someone to officially mentor me, I approached them and asked for help. Some were will to help, others were too busy. I just always tried to surround myself with people who I could grow with. In almost all cases it worked out great and I learned a lot. I fully believe in the community we have. For that reason I think that many people want to “give back” to their fellow VCDX candidates.
I truly believe this new way of handling mentoring is much more community focussed and allows for a lot more flexibility between all parties involved. I’d love to hear your thoughts, mostly because I have not heard anything…which sort of scares me. Leave some comments below!
I Believe In Mentoring
I want to address the first bullet from the Mentoring Guidelines that states “Panelists can NOT be mentors”. The additional bullets are pretty clear as to the reasoning. The primary reason was the majority of Panelists themselves expressed concern about being both a Panelist and a mentor. I only want to point out this was the decision of the majority of current panelists. They did not want to inadvertently give someone a better chance by knowing the specifics of the defense process. Frankly I agreed with their decision and it’s what we ran with.
I realize this is not something everyone will like, but over time feelings will pass and we can learn to work within the new system. To be honest any kind of official mentoring was barely even a year old, so now was the time to make any significant changes. Just remember you cannot please everyone, but we are vetting our decisions with a lot of internal VCDX’s and the Advisors. These are not taken lightly by any means.